Paganino da Mare

Paganino da Mare, a famous corsair, takes Bartolomea from the sea and ultimately becomes her husband. His story moves from a sudden act of abduction to an encounter in which he lets her decide whether to return to her first husband, Ricciardo di Chinzica. That change does not erase the violence of the seizure; it gives the tale its central tension between possession and consent.

Identity and Introduction

Paganino is introduced as a well-known corsair who commands a galliot. While Bartolomea is out fishing with other women, his vessel overtakes their boat. He carries her aboard in full view of Ricciardo, who has reached shore, and sails away. The swift capture leaves her husband unable to pursue or even discover who has taken her.

Paganino has no wife at the time. Finding Bartolomea beautiful, he considers himself fortunate and resolves to keep her. The story thus presents him first through the logic of the captor: he sees her appearance as a reason to claim her, while her distress makes plain that she has not chosen to go with him.

From Captivity to a New Household

Bartolomea weeps after being taken. Paganino tries to comfort her with gentle words, but by night he turns from words to physical intimacy. The narration describes her grief giving way: before they reach Monaco, the calendar and religious holidays that had governed life with Ricciardo have slipped from her mind, and she begins to live cheerfully with Paganino.

At Monaco, he treats her honorably as his wife. That description sits uneasily beside the story’s account of her capture: the household’s apparent marital order begins in an act she did not consent to. Yet the narrative also distinguishes her later attachment from the initial seizure. When Ricciardo eventually arrives seeking her return, Bartolomea is able to state what she wants without Paganino speaking in her place.

The Test of Bartolomea’s Choice

Ricciardo approaches Paganino civilly and offers to pay whatever ransom is demanded. Paganino answers that he does not know whether the young woman is Ricciardo’s wife, and proposes bringing them together so she can identify him. If she acknowledges the marriage and agrees to leave, Ricciardo may pay whatever he thinks fit; if she does not, Paganino says, it would be wrong to take her from him. He also asserts that he is young and able to entertain her.

When Bartolomea appears, dressed and composed, she greets Ricciardo as a stranger. Ricciardo supposes she is afraid to recognize him in Paganino’s presence and asks to speak to her alone. In private, she confirms that she knows him, but rejects his appeal to take her home. She contrasts her life under his calendar of saints’ days and fasts with Paganino’s constant embraces, and says she intends to remain. She also warns that if Paganino leaves her, she will seek her advantage elsewhere rather than return to Ricciardo. Her refusal, not the ransom negotiation, determines the outcome.

Marriage and Narrative Significance

Ricciardo leaves without Bartolomea and returns to Pisa. The tale says that his grief deepens into such a fixation that he answers people with a complaint about holidays before dying not long afterward. Paganino, learning of his death and knowing Bartolomea’s love for him, marries her lawfully. They live together cheerfully, without observing saints’ days, vigils, or Lent as barriers to their sexual life.

Paganino’s arc is therefore not simply that of a pirate who takes a wife. The tale first shows him using force, then makes the husband’s claim depend on Bartolomea’s own answer. Its comic ending contrasts Ricciardo’s restrictive calendar and frustrated appeal with the life she chooses to continue with Paganino. That resolution grants her decision decisive force, while leaving the original abduction visible as the troubling beginning of their relationship.